“Alexa, where’s my damn package?” (Page down 3-4 times to the video.) Life is full of surprises, good and bad. Rates aren’t a surprise… The U.S. Federal Reserve can only do so much about inflation. Geo-politics are a big deal, of course, and there is nothing our Fed, tasked with maintaining economic stability in this country, can do about those. Vendors and lenders are doing what they can, cutting over-capacity and expenses. Capital markets staffs everywhere are interested in which investors have pushed out the $2,500 Freddie and Fannie month-old HomeReady credit, as well as non-QM, jumbo, co-issue, and servicing buyers. (STRATMOR’s current blog is titled, “It’s 2024: Do You Know Where Your Servicing Is?”) Speaking of capital markets, today’s TMC Rundown features Mutual of Omaha’s Matt Nyman. (Found here, this week’s podcast is sponsored by Truv. Truv lets applicants verify income, employment, assets, i
I could tell that my cat Myrtle was miffed. Not only had the work on her “2024 Vision Board Statement” languished, but either there was no line-caught halibut in her bowl, or the laser pointer’s battery was dead. It turned out that it was neither. Instead, it was news that the CFPB was not meeting its goals. the Office of Inspector General of the Federal Reserve Board released a report assessing the CFPB’s process for conducting enforcement investigations and making two recommendations. First, noting that the CFPB has not met its stated goal to file or settle 65 percent of its enforcement actions within two years, the OIG recommended that the CFPB Office of Enforcement incorporates the timing expectations for key steps in the enforcement process into the tracking and monitoring of matters. The OIG also recommended improvements to enforcement staff training on document maintenance and retention requirements for the CFPB’s matter management system. The
The unofficial Chrisman LLC sarcastic slogan is, “We do this not because it is easy, but because we thought it would be easy.” Hopefully, there are no lenders out there with that slogan, as residential lending, done the right way, is not easy. Sometimes residential lending seems discombobulated. Sometimes things settle down and become more orderly: recombobulated! (Workflow and improved lender efficiency are the topics of today’s Mortgage Collaborative Rundown featuring Donielle Geiser with Thrive Mortgage.) Not only is our biz not easy but it is also unpredictable. 2024 is shaping up to be another tough year for mortgage originations due to the market environment, and every basis point will matter. Capacity still needs to be right sized across the industry, and the market and your competitors will force that to happen. Would you rather have profitability or market share? If you’re losing money what difference does market share make? If you don’t have
This morning I head to Dallas, Texas, where, if you ask Redfin, prices are up 5 percent for the year. Or Zillow will tell you prices are down 2 percent. Can’t we all agree on something? Certainly, we can all agree that inflation is simply too many dollars chasing too few goods. How about when too many houses are chasing too few insurance companies? No insurance company wants to be the last one standing. (Today’s “Mortgage Matters: The Weekly Roundup” at 11AM PT, 2PM ET, focuses on how LOs and brokers are dealing with the homeowners insurance nightmare.) In California, home to plenty of insurance companies dropping insuring homes, the Insurance Commissioner is an elected position. Ricardo Lara doesn’t want to lose his job, so doesn’t allow insurance companies to raise their premiums to compensate for risk. So, they drop out. “With the average premium priced over $1,400, some homeowners are opting to drop home insurance altogether. But thi
For anyone attending the California MBA’s Western Secondary starting this weekend, here’s a challenge too good for any tennis players to pass up. Augie Del Rio, CEO of Gallus Insights, and I will play doubles against anyone Sunday afternoon from 2-4PM across the street from the Waldorf. The loser of 2 out of 3 sets pays $500, the winner gets to decide the charity. First two to email Augie snags the opportunity. (I don’t know Augie’s skill level, but I am old… it’ll be like shooting fish in a barrel.) Speaking of the Western Secondary Market Conference, the California MBA uses the financial resources derived from this to support advocacy efforts in Sacramento. No “lobby rats!” If you’re going, sign up. Support the organization! (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s is sponsored by Richey May, a recognized leader in providing specialized advisory, audit, tax, technology and other services to the mor